Posted 4 years ago on June 21, 2013, 7:45 a.m. EST by bensdad
(8977)
This content is user submitted and not an official statement

The very bad news is that your best shot at conversion,
after 37 years of religio-mumbo-jumbo, has shut down.

The very good news - the most shocking news, in fact is -they apologized for their fraud

Announcing that Exodus International is shutting down, the president of the Christian-based ministry admitted he was wrong about trying to turn gay people straight.

A Christian-based organization that long claimed homosexuals could be "cured" of their sexual orientation is shutting down after more than three decades, and its president has apologized to gays and lesbians for what he called years of undue judgment.

Exodus International made the announcement on its website on Wednesday. “Exodus is an institution in the conservative Christian world, but we’ve ceased to be a living, breathing organism,” Alan Chambers, president of Exodus, said in a statement. "For quite some time we've been imprisoned in a worldview that’s neither honoring toward our fellow human beings, nor biblical."

In an earlier blog post titled "I Am Sorry," Chambers apologized to those harmed by so-called ex-gay therapy, also known as reparative therapy.
"I cannot simply move on and pretend that I have always been the friend that I long to be today," Chambers said. "I understand why I am distrusted and why Exodus is hated."

Founded in 1976, Orlando, Fla.-based Exodus International once boasted more than 270 member ministries around the U.S. and the world. It was a prominent leader of the "ex-gay movement" that emerged in the 1970s seeking to encourage people to abandon "the gay lifestyle."

The group's decision to close after 37 years comes nine months after California became the first state in the nation to pass a bill banning therapy that tries to turn gay teens straight. That law is being challenged in federal court in separate lawsuits filed by two organizations, the Pacific Justice Institute, a civil liberties group, and Liberty Counsel, a group that promotes religious freedom.

Democratic state Sen. Ted Lieu, who sponsored the bill, has said it was necessary because gay children were being psychologically abused by reparative therapists who tried in vain to change their sexual orientation.
"An entire house of medicine has rejected gay conversion therapy. Not only does it not work but it is harmful. Patients who go through this have gone through guilt and shame, and some have committed suicide," Lieu said shortly after the bill was signed into law.

President Chambers, who is described on the Exodus website as a gay teen who "chose to pursue Christ over his same sex attractions," admitted that he was still attracted to men. "There were several years that I conveniently omitted my ongoing same-sex attractions. I was afraid to share them as readily and easily as I do today. They brought me tremendous shame and I hid them in the hopes they would go away. Looking back, it seems so odd that I thought I could do something to make them stop," he said. "Today, however, I accept these feelings as parts of my life that will likely always be there. The days of feeling shame over being human in that way are long over, and I feel free simply accepting myself as my wife and family does. As my friends do. As God does."
..........................................From MSM News